Rachel Reeves will “betray” the British people if she goes ahead with blistering tax hikes in her first budget today, it was claimed.
The Chancellor is expected to unleash a brutal round of increases that will hit employers and savers.
Tory leader Rishi Sunak savaged Labour for its litany of “broken promises and deception” during the election campaign.
He said: “Rachel Reeves promised that her plans were fully funded, and she promised that she wouldn’t change the debt target because that would be ‘fiddling the figures’.
“We already know that those promises are totally worthless because she is going to change her fiscal rules so she can go on a borrowing spree.
“If she was to compound that by breaking her promise to the British people not to raise taxes on working people by increasing national insurance, that would be a complete betrayal.
“And she knows it. She’s called national insurance a ‘jobs tax’ which ‘takes money out of people’s pockets’.
“And worst of all, she said, the problem with national insurance ‘is that it is a tax purely on people who go to work and those who employ them’.
“Far from protecting working people she would be raising literally the only major tax that specifically hits working people.”
Ms Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer repeatedly promised there would be no increase in taxes for working people during the election and ruled out rises to VAT, national insurance and income tax.
But the government has repeatedly refused to give a definition of who counts as a working person.
The Chancellor will today say that it applies to workers with payslips, effectively those on PAYE.
She is expected to hike up the national insurance contributions paid by employers, leading to claims Labour has played fast and loose with the election pledges.
Families face being hit by more severe inheritance tax penalties while savers and investors are in line for a raid on their cash.
Ms Reeves is expected to hit private sector employers with an increase of at least one point on national insurance contributions, but the public sector will receive extra cash to offset the changes.
It means the contributions for a nurse in the NHS will be covered but one working for other organisations will not.
A senior Tory source said charities like Macmillan Cancer Support could be affected and called it an “economic apartheid”.
Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick said: “This budget completes the biggest heist in modern political history. The Labour Party won power by lying to the British public about their plan to hike taxes.
“Working people are going to suffer and our economic recovery will take a huge hit. No wonder the public don’t trust politicians.”
Rival Kemi Badenoch accused Ms Reeves of a financial “con trick” after she announced changes to debt rules that will allow her to borrow up to £50 billion for investment.
Ms Badenoch said: “We don’t know the exact detail yet but we do know that it’s coming.
“Reeves is about to go on a spending binge with the nation’s credit card, throwing billions into an unreformed system which will take the money but not deliver the results.”
Sir Keir revealed this week that the Budget will include measures to increase bus fares by 50% to £3.
But Greater Manchester’s Labour mayor Andy Burnham confirmed the city will keep its £2 limit on costs.
He said: “On January 5, 2025, we will proceed with our plan to introduce a new simpler, flatter fare structure based around a £2 single fare and, on March 23 2025, a contactless London-style payment system with a daily and weekly cap setting a maximum for what people pay when travelling on our buses and trams.”
